Perception

Magna res est vocis et silentii temperamentum --"The great thing is to know when to speak and when to keep quiet"

Although it's an odd memory the "lesson" I learned from a guy named Patrick in college has remained with me. He was an interesting guy...the first person I really ever hung out with who was into recreational drugs (he often tried things that he didn't even know the name for). I learned how a water bong worked and how people decided what to purchase from their suppliers. Important learning for a naive college freshman who had traveled the world but knew little about this side of life.

But the lesson I learned had nothing to do with drug use or naiveté. Our conversations helped me develop my concept of communication, that I believe to this day. You see, Patrick and I were completely different. We both spoke English as a first language, but the way that we spoke and the things we chose to say were completely different. I don't know how to explain this and I no longer can quote things he said, but I know that 50% of the time I didn't have a clue what he was saying. He would say the words, I would hear them and then they translated to no recognizable concept in my head, or would translate to something completely wrong. Simirla to thsoe sutdys taht say you cuodl raed dfifernet tihgns even wehn spllenig is worng-- I realized that my brain pieces together statements based on probability. That the words that I hear accurately are probably only 70% intact, and my brain interprets the rest to calculate meaning. So I might hear "I-- r---ee -ite to c-d new bu- I jus- ca-d" and even with misheard letters I'd interpret "I'd really like to come now but just can't" ...but with people like Patrick I might be interpreting incorrectly. He might have said "I'm rolling right now to cut blunts at my joint, ciao"...And my brain would take the syncopation of the phrases, the letters and sounds of the words and try to make a sensible sentence...which was almost always wrong. His syncopation was different, his wording was different, the things he said were different and while everyone else could understand him I'd have him repeat the same phrase 3 times and still not understand. We were on different wavelengths.

My lesson in communication: that we actually hear very little and interpret a lot has served me well. It has helped me in sales--learning to articulate, re-state, re-phrase and use visual aids. It has helped me speak with people from other cultures and with different language backgrounds with shorter phrasing and easier words. It has helped me avoid frustration over things that I know I simply MUST be hearing/understanding wrong.

In general: I've applied this lesson to other areas of life as well and realized that what we see isn't always what we think we see and what we understand of the world has so often been skewed by our own perspectives and understandings that we should reserve judgment. I often try to think of other possibilities for why someone might be saying or doing something that is different or unwanted.

(This post was written almost exactly a year ago (1/22/09) and I'm finally posting it.--with a few additions/edits)

How knowing I'm helpless is a comfort.

Helpless should simply mean "without help" but, like most things, it's not that simple.
My good friends at merriam-webster.com tell me that helpless is:
1: lacking protection or support : defenseless
2 a: marked by an inability to act or react b: not able to be controlled or restrained

I have been talking to a few friends lately about how out of control my life feels lately and the effect that it is having on me.

In case you don't know my roommate just moved out, and although I've been searching through friends and craigslist for a month I have yet to find a new roommate and am faced with either a tremendously high rent that will carve into my savings for July or spend every moment not at work packing up and finding a place to move to (still an incredibly daunting and expensive task.)Or stay for the month of July with the tremendously high rent and STILL have to pay moving expenses.

I just re-did my budget last month based on my new (lower) income (my pay is commission based) and was looking at only having $200 for non-fixed expenses each month, and so any place with higher rent is definitely a bad thing if I want to continue to eat.

In addition, my birthday is tomorrow, the 16th, and it also marks the one year anniversary of the last time I saw my Dad...He passed July 1st, 2008.

Talking to a friend late last month about all the stress in my life she suggested I ask around and find someone to host my birthday for me so that I wouldn't feel it another burden. I asked and immediately someone offered, and I was relieved that I wouldn't have to worry about it. But subsequently her apartment was broken into and then her father took ill and she flew home for a bit. So she just finally called today to say we could still have it this Saturday at her place. I'm not sure I want to even try, since it will mean a lot of work planning it myself, and I really don't know how I'd handle it if it was not a success.

To go along with my housing drama I have my mother's housing drama in that she is planning on moving this summer from the house I grew up in across town to the house she grew up in. This means that at some point I need to go back to Ohio and bring back even more "stuff". It also means that I've talked to my mom a lot about all of the stress she's under in figuring out the moving, trying to find time to deal with two households worth of belongings that need to be sold off and trying to get the best price for the stuff possible. They had an auction yesterday and made less money than they had hoped and the auctioneers did not take away the excess as my Mom had thought they would. When I expressed my disappointment in this (which is really just for the added stress on my mom) my brother got defensive and "virtually" hung up on me.

While discussing my feelings with a friend and saying how much I hated not being able to control all of these things in my life my friend commented on how hard it is to be "helpless". A little light went off in my head. Just like when I was first mourning my father and was in some way comforted when, on occasion, a feeling came up that I had a name for--sad, or angry, or isolated, etc. Somehow knowing that what I really feel is helpless (marked by an inability to act or react) is a comfort.

Grammar

I have always believed in using proper grammar and have had the normal cringes at the wrong uses of "their/there/they're" or "it/it's" and all of the other obvious common errors, but having just worked on my fourth Nanowrimo novel I realized how much more focused and thoughtful I am of my grammar and writing these days. I think I have crossed over some line where now I feel completely uneducated and feel that my understanding of grammar is completely inadequate. I spend time fretting over whether I should be adding commas or semi-colons, over the proper use of a term, and over the changing of tenses and point-of-view. I struggle over proper punctuation to both conform to grammar rules and allow the proper reading of dialog.

I feel like having reached this level is like that moment when you realize it [u]is[/u] more fun to dance without being thrown around the floor, like the moment that you have a wonderful dance and realize how immature all of the rest of what you have been doing seems. I am at the point where reading about participial phrases is pleasurable because I can see how this knowledge will improve my writing and my communication in general. I am looking forward to reading up on punctuation and clauses.

I am an aspiring grammar nerd.

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Nerdy words

So in a couple of lovely nerdy conversations I have had recently people were recounting their favorite words. There were some interesting choices:
Discombobulation
Defenestration
Esoteric
Bunny

and a few others that I didn't know and apparently still don't, as I can't really remember them. But there was one that stuck in my mind as a new word with definite possibilites:

ekphrasis

Main Entry: ek·phra·sis \ehk-fra-sis\
Variant(s): also ec·phra·sis
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural ek·phra·ses also ec·phra·ses \-sēz\
Etymology: Greek ekphrasis, literally, description, from ekphrazein to recount, describe, from ex- out + phrazein to point out, explain
Date: 1715
: a literary description of or commentary on a visual work of art

which reminds me of:

pastiche \pass-TEESH\ noun
*1 : a literary, artistic, musical, or architectural work
that imitates the style of previous work; also : such
stylistic imitation
2 a : a musical, literary, or artistic composition made up
of selections from different works : potpourri b : hodgepodge



Other words I might submit for my list of interesting words (not that I'll ever use most of them) my favorites in italics:

confabulate = confer
octothorpe = #
metonymy = word used for what it represents: "the Crown", "The White House"
phantasmagoria = display of optical effects/illusions
tergiversation : equivocation = evasive speech failing to make a clear statement
eidolon = ideal (think: similar to an idol)
encomium/panegyric = enthusiastic praise
bloviate = to speak or write verbosely and windily
nefarious = flagrantly wicked
tenditious = biased
aleatory = relating to chance or luck
capricious = unpredictable- governed by sudden, impulsive ideas or actions
desultory = marked by lack of direction/purpose (jumps around topics)
non sequitur = statement does not follow or relate to anything previously said.
prate/claver/palaver = idle chat
redolent = fragrant
susurration = whisper
suss out = figure out (british)
penetralia = the innermost or most private parts
axilla = a more interesting word for armpit
poltroon = coward
per contra = by contrast
proclivity/ = a strong inherent inclination towards something objectionable
propensity/ = uncontrollable inclination
penchent/ = irresistible attraction
predeliction = strong liking derived from one's temprament
pretentiousness = expressive of exaggerated importance, stature or worth
misoneism = hatred of change
misanthrope = a person who hates or distrusts humankind
eristic = characterized by disputatious and specious reasoning: argumentative


Anyone have any favorites they care to add?

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Provocative T-shirts

Interesting article on the T-shirts many of the young folk are wearing these days.
Here are a couple excerpts:

Call it rude, call it crude, call it the latest sign of civilization’s decline — there is no escaping message Ts.
Some are harmless. JCPenney sells T-shirts that say “Be happy” and “Looking for my prince.” Some are ironic: “You couldn’t afford my expensive taste” is the message on a $12.99 shirt at Charlotte Russe.

Then there are the baddies of the T-shirt world — the sexy girls smokin’ in the bathroom. “Stop staring, they don’t talk.” “Yes, but not with you.” “Are you a good boy?’’

In a society soaked with sexual imagery, such messages are being worn by girls barely old enough to drive, or in some cases, stay home without a sitter.

But when does playful cross the line to trashy? And how should educators deal with sexual messages in the classroom?

At International Plaza’s Abercrombie store, 16-year-old Rebekah Stellick of Clearwater purchased a shirt that read:

“I may not be perfect, but parts of me are pretty awesome.”

Ariel Levy , author of the book Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, says provocative shirts are a symptom of a culture obsessed with sexual showmanship.

“Even if you have a dress code that says you can’t wear that to school, it doesn’t change the fact that the entire culture is set up in a way where that is appropriate,” Levy said. She said it trickles down to youngsters from women who confuse sexual explicitness with feminist liberation.

Personally I rarely wear anything that says something at all, if I do it is usually either humorous or advertising for something I believe in. I object to even the "Princess" and "Boy crazy" t-shirts I've seen young girls wearing today because I really feel that the labeling makes girls WANT to fit the words and become some stereotype more than they might already have become. ICK! Why are women creating an ever-heightening sexual atmosphere and hierarchy for OURSELVES? Why do we take over where men leave off and push it even further?

GRRRRRR!

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